


Not exactly pushing daisies

by tetsurashian



Category: Bleach
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-11
Updated: 2014-12-11
Packaged: 2018-03-01 01:03:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,837
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2753771
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tetsurashian/pseuds/tetsurashian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kurosaki Ichigo can see spirits. And bring the dead back to life for a day at a time. It doesn't and does change things. (Slightly crack-y AU, but with a dash of seriousness.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not exactly pushing daisies

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't touched Bleach since middle-school. I don't even know why I wrote this thing, only that I did and it exists so I might as well share it.
> 
> Unbeta'd, slightly disjointed, and short. Possibly OOC and not enough fact-checking.

1.

He doesn’t know when it first started. Early in his childhood, for sure, because he distinctly remembers finding his third grade class’s pet rabbit dead the morning it was his turn to feed him. But then he poked it once, twice, and the rabbit jumped back to life as if it had been merely sleeping. (And back then, he thought that was the case too.)

Akane-chan screamed and cried when she found the rabbit still and definitely not just sleeping the very next day, though.

There are a few other instances, but they’ve always been animals or insects, always been negligible events, and with no real trigger.

(And oh, how he wished he knew what it was during that rainy day when all he could do was kneel beside his mother’s body and beg for her to wake up, _wakeupmommypleasewakeup_ -

((A few years later, Ichigo realizes that even if he _did_ know how to trigger his… _talent_ back then, it had already been too late the moment the Grand Fisher swallowed his mother’s soul.)) )

But Ichigo can’t forget the heart-attack he practically got at the tender age of twelve when he revived an actual human spirit for the first time. The little girl (hadn’t been even dead for a day, Ichigo somehow realized, and felt sick) wasn’t even any older than Yuzu and Karin, and at the time Ichigo’s heart ached and he tried to comfort the spirit as best as he could. He was mildly alarmed when she started sniffling. Alarm turned into horror when the tears started to fall. Then she started bawling and screaming and in his panic, Ichigo grabbed her arm, all the while thinking _pleasestopimsorryyou’redeadican’tdoanythingi’msorryi’msorryiwishyouwerealiveyoudon’tdeserve--_

The girl gasped a large breath, and the arm he was holding suddenly turned properly solid and warm and _alive_. Ichigo heart practically stopped.

The girl beamed, and skipped away while Ichigo crouched on the floor, thinking _what the fu-_

And then he noticed a foot identical to the little girl’s peeking out the pile of trash bags in the alleyway he found her in front of and everything else vanished from his mind.

He managed to get home before vomiting his lunch into the toilet.

Two days later, he came back to the spot he met her with flowers and one of his old teddybears. There was already an amount of offerings there - flowers and stuffed toys like the ones he brought - and a framed picture of the little girl - _Shizune-chan, 7 years old, body found yesterday after being missing for 24 hours even though Ichigo knew it had been closer to 48_ \- The girl’s spirit was there too, nestled between bouquets and idly petting a pink unicorn plush. Shizune saw him a minute later, and Ichigo felt uncomfortable at the huge smile that appeared on her face before she trotted over to him.

“Hey, onii-chan, I was waiting for you!” She pressed against his side, her small, see-through hand grabbing his as he walked towards the small altar and laid the flowers and the teddybear with everything else.

“I’m sorry,” For all that he was used to seeing and talking to the dead, Ichigo was still only _twelve_ and a big brother and it’s the younger ones that always get to him. “I didn’t know that I could- that I would--” Ichigo scowled in frustration at himself for being unable to bring what he wants to say into words.

“It’s okay,” Shizune said gently, as if he was the one in need of comforting when she was the one who was dead. _Again_. “I told Mommy that Onii-chan helped me get home the other day and she said that I should thank you the next time I see you. So thank you!”

“What’s there to be thankful for?” Ichigo frowned, “You’re still...”

“Yeah, but I was able tell Mommy and Daddy that I love them and goodbye one last time. So again, thank you!” She grinned and Ichigo thought back to the countless other spirits who desperately tried to get their loved ones to hear them, to say sorry or goodbye or that they loved them, only for their words to fall into deaf ears, and then thought about how if _he_ died then well--

Goat-face maybe sometimes lacking as a father, but he was still _his_ , and Yuzu and Karin would like to know that things would be okay.

“You’re welcome, I guess,” is all Ichigo mumbled, in the end.

  
  


2.

He purposely does _not_ think about it. Seeing spirits is one thing; reviving the dead (even for a relatively short period of time) is another.

It was fortunate that no one had seen his trick with Shizune, spirit or human, and the little girl seemed to have kept it to herself during the time before she moved on. For that, he’s grateful and made sure to pray for her the next time he visited a shrine. Still, he avoided touching other spirits (not that he did so much before, but now he was more self-aware about it), seeing as that was one common factor among all those “revivals” he had unknowingly done before. He’d rather not risk any more.

Of course, then the shinigami and all the craziness that went with her kind comes along.

“Fuck my life,” he declares at the ceiling from his place on his bed one night, after everything had sunk in and realizing that he was now a _shinigami_ , of all things. “Seriously, what did I do to deserve this?”

“Are you talking to yourself?” Rukia peers at him from her place in his closet. “That’s not a good sign of mental health, you know.”

“ _Nothing_ about this is a good sign of my mental health,” Ichigo groans, “You _spirits_ are going to drive me to an early grave.”

“Don’t worry, I’m quite adept at konso,” Rukia beams at him.

“As if I’d let a midget like you be the one to send me off to the afterlife.”

“Oi!”

  
  


3.

_“What happens if I ‘revive’ a shinigami?”_ was a question he found himself thinking. Many times.

Go back to life, surely. After all, they are still spirits, for all that they’re more grounded and more powerful than Pluses. But what of their powers? Will they keep them? Ichigo can’t summon his zanpakuto or float in midair while in his human body, after all, but for all he knew that was just a restriction of actually still being alive and well, in his original human body. Rukia is barely a shinigami these days (after all, Ichigo took _too much_ of her powers, he thinks guiltily), and that gigai thing is possibly another to consider.

Still, as curious as he is, it’s not like he had anyone he could ask or (he thinks reluctantly) try it on. He sure as hell isn’t going to reveal this particular talent of his to the Geta-Boshi, that creep.

  
  


4.

Ichigo’s not sure if he ever wants to find out what will happen if he ever tried it on a Hollow though. Even though giving Inoue and her brother a day to reconnect is a tempting thing.

  
  


5.

Ichigo isn’t a malicious person, no matter what people think because of his delinquent status. He is first and foremost a protector, and rarely does he really pull the first punch. There are few beings in the world that he’d wish the absolute worst of (the Grand Fisher, first and foremost).

But for the first time in a long, long while, rage overcomes despair when Rukia is taken by her so-called brother and her so-called friend to be _executed_ for something that had, ultimately, been beyond her control. Ichigo wants to bring back that bastard captain back to life, kill him, and _then_ kill him _again_ in his _soul_ form (but that may just be his newfound inner Hollow talking).

(Older siblings are supposed to protect the younger ones, and Ichigo doesn’t give a flying fuck if Rukia is only adopted. Byakuya took upon a responsibility when he brought her into his family, _goddammit_ , and if he wasn’t going to take care of her properly, _Ichigo_ will.

Even if that meant storming Seiretei with only a small army composed of four teenagers and a _cat_.)

  
  


6.

“So, I have a question.” Ichigo starts after a few moments of silence. “Nothing related to my bankai but the other thing. _You know_.” Zangetsu quirks an eyebrow in response. “What _does_ happen if I revive a shinigami? Do _you_ know? I mean, if you did, I’d rather you give me a heads-up on what to expect if I slip around here. Since we are in a city full of shinigami, after all.”

The smile Zangetsu gives him makes Ichigo glad that the old man is _his_ zanpakuto.

  
  


7.

Ichigo prides himself for his sharp mind. He may not be a genius or anything, but contrary to seemingly growingly popular belief, he _does_ know how to use his head, in battle or otherwise.

But sometimes you just gotta say “ _Fuck it_.”

Which is exactly what he does, grabbing the closest body part he can when Aizen appears within arms reach and ready to cleave him in half. “ _Live_ , asshole,” he says, putting everything in that one word with hopes that it’ll work (else he’ll look like an idiot and get killed), and grins, all teeth. And _feels_ Aizen’s reiatsu drop sharply and his self turn _human_ in his hands. It was only because of Ichigo’s grip on him that Aizen doesn’t crack open his skull on the ground dozens of meters below when he inevitably became unable to keep himself in the air.

“What did you do to me?!” Aizen demanded, the smug self-righteousness gone and replaced with absolute fury and underlying panic.

“Huh,” Ichigo’s lips quirked into a smirk, “so the old man was right. Shinigami _do_ lose their powers when they come back alive.”

  
  


8.

That creepy Captain (Twelfth Division?) won’t stop staring and Ichigo keeps a wary eye on him from the corner of his vision. He doesn’t trust those twitching hands and that disturbing gleam in his eyes.

“You can revive the dead for 24 hours,” Rukia stares at him. “What the _fuck_.”

“Yeah, welcome to my life,” Ichigo can only say dryly. A few meters away, the other Gotei 13 Captains and Lieutenants are divided between making sure the three (or two? That weird silver haired guy looked like he was trying to explain something to the old man and that busty lady) traitors aren’t about to pull an escape out of their asses, reiatsu or no reiatsu, and blatantly gaping at him (to be fair, he did just turn three of their best shinigami into actual living, breathing humans with a touch of his hand and his say-so). Beside him, Ishida is pinching the bridge of his nose, Inoue fretfully doesn’t seem to know what to think, and Chad is unflappable as ever.

“Kisuke is going to have a field day,” Yoruichi snorts.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I will most likely NOT expand on this because a) I never watched anything after the Soul Society arc and a few eps after it, and b) I have no idea what I'm doing. Seriously. This is it. Therefore if anyone wants to expand on this verse or remix this jig, feel free to do so. (I'd love to read it though.)
> 
> Thanks for reading!


End file.
